A Shock, Not a Surprise
The 9/11 attacks were a shock, but they should not have come as a surprise. Islamist extremists had given plenty of warning that they meant to kill Americans indiscriminately and in large numbers. Although Usama Bin Ladin himself would not emerge as a signal threat until the late 1990s, the threat of Islamist terrorism grew over the decade.

hoovs, i don't get it? unless you haven't been paying attention, US generals have come out this week and have said there's civil war... wouldn't you have to agree the media was right in its reporting of this?

hehe, that reminds me, as Colbert once said, "Reality has a well known liberal bias.."

hoovs, i don't get it? unless you haven't been paying attention, US generals have come out this week and have said there's civil war... wouldn't you have to agree the media was right in its reporting of this?

hehe, that reminds me, as Colbert once said, "Reality has a well known liberal bias.."

You must've been one of the five people on the planet watching the show when he said that.

hoovs, i don't get it? unless you haven't been paying attention, US generals have come out this week and have said there's civil war... wouldn't you have to agree the media was right in its reporting of this?

Really? I didn't read that. I did read this, though:

Two top Pentagon commanders said Thursday that spiraling violence in Baghdad could propel Iraq into outright civil war, using a politically loaded term that the Bush administration has long avoided.

The generals said they believe a full-scale civil war is unlikely. Even so, their comments to Congress cast the war in more somber hues than the administration usually uses, and further dampened lawmakers' hopes that troops would begin returning home in substantial numbers from the widely unpopular war in time for this fall's elections.

hoovs, i don't get it? unless you haven't been paying attention, US generals have come out this week and have said there's civil war... wouldn't you have to agree the media was right in its reporting of this?

hehe, that reminds me, as Colbert once said, "Reality has a well known liberal bias.."

I have to disagree w/ you on this one GFunk. They stopped short of calling it a civil war, I believe they said "If the violence continues it could lead to civil war", and I think Pace said it was "possible, but not probable". Which still does not change my view that if it is not in a civil war as of yet, it is just around the corner.

BAGHDAD, Aug. 4 -- Thousands of Shiite Muslims marched though the Iraqi capital on Friday in support of Hezbollah guerrillas battling Israeli forces, answering a call by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr rally to the cause of their fellow Shiites in Lebanon.

Throngs of Shiite men, most clad in white burial shrouds that symbolized their willingness to die, gathered in the northeast Baghdad slum known as Sadr City and marched toward the center of the capital, chanting "Death to Israel" and "Death to America." Marchers waved the yellow flag of Hezbollah and the red-and-green flag of Lebanon, while occasionally pausing to desecrate the Israeli flag.

Though clearly huge, the precise size of the crowd was impossible to determine. Estimates made by organizers ranged from 250,000 to 1 million, but the U.S. military said in a news release that calculations based on pictures taken from unmanned surveillance aircraft put the crowd at 14,000.

I have to disagree w/ you on this one GFunk. They stopped short of calling it a civil war, I believe they said "If the violence continues it could lead to civil war", and I think Pace said it was "possible, but not probable". Which still does not change my view that if it is not in a civil war as of yet, it is just around the corner.

My main point was that the cartoon was blatantly saying that this idea of a civil war was manufactured by the media, and this week we have word from US generals that a civil war is a 'possibility'. Surely, those officials didn't testify because of what they saw and heard on TV.